Jilted Mafia Queen: Ruling The North

I grew up with four mafia heirs. At ten years old, we took the Omertà, a sacred blood oath, swearing to never abandon each other.

For them, I had turned down prestigious recruitment offers from the Apex Commission in the North twice.

That was, until a month ago, when the Family brought back Mia-the orphaned daughter of a loyal soldier who died for the Obsidian Syndicate.

She had been stranded on the outside, suffering for years.

To compensate for her tragic past, my four closest childhood friends changed completely. They grew increasingly cold toward me, yet showered Mia with endless care and affection.

Even my fiancé, Lucian, the future Don, used his promise to marry me in the North to trick me into signing a transfer contract to the freezing wastelands. He did it all just to let Mia replace me and take my highly coveted, deeply secure seat in the elite tactical command.

When I confronted them with the forged application, Lucian didn't even blink.

Shielding Mia behind him, he confessed with chilling entitlement: "Since you've already seen it, I'll tell you the truth. Mia has suffered enough, and she would never survive the Northern winters. You are different, Sienna. You are strong. You can survive anything."

The other three heirs immediately chimed in, accusing me of being too damn selfish.

To appease Mia's crocodile tears, they even violently tore my room apart and permanently deleted all my childhood videos from the Family's encrypted servers-the only memories I had left of my dead parents.

They assumed I loved them too much and was too soft-hearted to ever leave, no matter how much they wronged me.

They thought they were just sending me North for a one-year training program, and that by winter break, I would come crawling back to them, begging for their attention.

What they didn't know was that the contract I signed wasn't a standard exchange application, but a classified, five-year absolute severance agreement.

This time, I was never coming back.

Chapter 1

Looking at the four men standing in the opulent, cigar-smoke-filled VIP lounge of the Syndicate's casino, my heart felt like it was being ruthlessly crushed.

Lucian, Dante, Silas, and Enzo. At ten years old, we had sliced our palms with a silver switchblade to take the Omertà. When our bleeding palms pressed together, we swore never to abandon each other.

Enzo leaned weakly against the mahogany bar, guiltily averting his eyes to the floor, not daring to meet my stare.

"Who forged the four fake applications to the Apex Commission?" I asked.

"I did," Lucian answered without a single second of hesitation.

"And the promise you made last month?" I asked, my voice terrifyingly hollow. "When you publicly swore that if I transferred North, you would accompany me and officially crown me as your Mafia Queen? Was that just part of the trap, too?"

Lucian's jaw tightened. "You would never marry a man who left you alone in a rival territory. If I hadn't promised to go to the North with you, you would have never signed the preliminary transfer papers."

He knew exactly how much I loved him.

And he had weaponized that love just to clear my elite central command seat for Mia.

Right on cue, Mia played the victim. Covering her face with her delicate hands to hide her crocodile tears, she trembled, "I... I'll go North. I can take Sienna's place in the freezing snow... I really don't want to cause any trouble for everyone."

Dante immediately took a step forward, instinctively shielding her. The faint bulge of his shoulder holster was visible under his tailored jacket. He was the Obsidian Syndicate's future Chief Enforcer, built like an impenetrable tank-a human shield that used to belong solely to me.

"You are not going anywhere, Mia," Dante growled, his voice rough. "This was a joint decision made by all of us. Sienna, stop being so damn selfish!"

"But what about Sienna?" Mia's delicate shoulders shook in a display of feigned innocence. "She will be all alone so far away. She's going to be miserable."

Lucian pulled out a silk handkerchief and gently wiped her face. "She can take care of herself. You've barely been back in the Family. Don't throw away your future over a moment of anger."

I stood only a few steps away, watching the four of them gather around Mia to comfort her.

They couldn't bear to send Mia to the freezing North to suffer, but they had absolutely no problem using a lie to deceive me into going there alone.

Silas, the eternally calculating Consigliere heir, pushed up his wire-rimmed glasses.

His voice was completely devoid of emotion, as clinical as a hitman calculating a bullet's trajectory rather than explaining a brutal betrayal.

"Sienna, I admit the way we handled this wasn't completely honest. But the outcome benefits everyone. The Apex Commission is still the best tactical facility on the continent. With your grades, you will definitely succeed. You are only going there for training. You can still come back to the Obsidian Syndicate during breaks. We stay here with Mia, you go North, and no one's future gets hurt."

"Except you completely trampled my right to choose into dust," I fired back.

The room went still. Dante's expression darkened.

"You already wanted to go to the Apex Commission. Their mentors contacted you twice. Every time you turned them down, you couldn't let it go. We just helped you make the decision."

"Wanting to go somewhere and being tricked into signing a contract by the people you trust most are two different things," I said, the betrayal slicing into my chest like a blade. "You weren't helping me choose. You were just making sure my choice worked best for Mia's manipulative little game."

I had wanted to go to the Apex Commission.

My dead father was the Obsidian Syndicate's Chief Architect, and I grew up surrounded by his tactical blueprints. The Northern intelligence research had been my dream for ten years.

But because I couldn't bear to leave them, I had turned the Northern mentors down twice.

Now I realized how close I had come to wasting my entire life on four men who didn't give a damn about what I wanted.

I turned to leave. Lucian immediately stepped into my path, firmly blocking the heavy mahogany doors.

"Where are you going?"

"Home."

"Sienna, don't say things you'll regret just because you're angry. I admit I lied about marrying you in the North because I needed your signature, but that doesn't mean my feelings for you are fake." He frowned, as if offering me an incredibly generous compromise. "I can keep dating you until your term starts. And when I have time, I'll visit you at the Apex Commission. You've always wanted to be with me, and now I've agreed. What else are you unhappy about?"

Mia sniffled from safely behind Dante's back, speaking softly in his defense. "Sienna, Lucian really does care about you. When you fell asleep on the couch last night, he even covered you with a blanket. You really should be grateful."

I almost laughed out loud.

I had almost sacrificed my entire future for them, and she thought a blanket could offset all of that.

I looked at the sickening scene before me-his hypocritical charity and her feigned kindness. They were a perfect match.

"Since you all care for each other so deeply," I said softly, my voice devoid of any ripples, "then I hope the five of you stay tied together forever."

I reached up to the nape of my neck and unclasped the heavy moonstone pendant.

Carved side by side into the silver crest were five clumsy childhood initials. We had made it with our own hands the day we took our blood oath at ten years old.

"Haven't you always cried about not being part of our childhood?" I placed the necklace on the casino table right in front of Mia. "You can have this, too."

Mia hesitated for a moment before reaching for it.

Lucian's brow furrowed deeply. "What the hell is wrong with you today? Didn't you always say we would never separate?"

"That was before."

I stepped around him and walked out the door.

As I walked down the dimly lit corridor, past the heavily armed guards, the encrypted phone hidden in my pocket vibrated.

[The Apex Commission's military-grade extraction vehicle will arrive in Obsidian territory in forty-eight hours.] [Once you confirm early entry into the Five-Year Classified Architect Program, your Syndicate transfer will begin simultaneously.] [Upon completion of the transfer, all ties and biometric clearances connecting you to your former Family will be permanently severed.] [Confirm?]

I stared down at the cold text on the screen, a chilling, mocking smile curving my lips. They had no idea.

The Apex Commission wasn't merely an academy. Its Architect division operated a classified military intelligence facility.

Ordinary students attended classes normally and could go home during the winter holidays. But classified Architects were different. We were required to transfer our absolute loyalty to the North. For five years, we could neither quit nor have any contact with the outside world.

I pressed 'Confirm'.

This time, they were going to lose me for good.